K Stands for Katheter

I just flew back from the K show in Düsseldorf, and boy are
my arms tired. Not from flapping, as that hackneyed joke would have it, but from
lugging reams of press kits all over the sprawling messe. As for my feet, dont
ask.

The Friday of the show was especially draining. The aisles were jammed solid with
people, while pockets of congestion extruded from almost every corner booth. A
good state of affairs for exhibitors, but wretched conditions for an editor chasing
news. And just to make matters worse, one exhibitor had the bright idea of moulding
and distributing full-size plastic trashcans to visitors. Its hard enough
weaving a path through the shuffling masses without having to dodge random receptacles.
If anyone wants to start a petition banning exhibitors from handing out anything
larger than a breadbox at future events, you can count on my signature.

None of these obstacles sapped my resolve, and I found a number of items of interest
for the medical technology industry, which will be covered in the January/February
issue of EMDM. In the meantime, I do want to mention an impressive in-line
catheter-manufacturing system that caught my eye on

the show floor.

PLA Giken Company, Ltd. (Osaka, Japan) claims that the MD-XCT Medical Extruder
Catheter System is the first machine of its kind on the market. In addition to
an extruder and related peripherals, the system integrates coating and braiding
modules, and a coating die with a switching device that allows it to process as
many as three polymers of varying hardness. According to the firm, the development
of a horizontally positioned braiding unit was a key design innovation that made
it possible to build a system that would take the automation of catheter production
to a new level. All of the system components, including the control and validation
unit, are designed and manufactured in-house.

The firm will be exhibiting for the first time at MD&M West in Anaheim, CA,
USA, from 1012 January, 2005, but it is unable to bring the machine, says
company president Yoshiharu Kikuzawa. The system can be viewed on the companys
Web site, www.plagiken.co.jp;
the text, however, is in Japanese. If you like what you see and want to learn
more about the MD-XCT, then I suggest that you follow the sun to Southern California
come January.